M0810: Out-of-Band Communications Channel

Out-of-Band Communications Channel is an ICS resilience control: when primary OT communications are unavailable, blocked, or potentially untrustworthy, operators and responders need alternative ways to coordinate decisions. Its value is highest during loss or manipulation of control/view scenarios, where delayed or incorrect communication can affect operational continuity and cyber-physical safety decisions.

Executive priority

Treat this as a continuity and incident-command requirement, not just a technical backup. Leaders should ask whether critical operator, engineering, and response communications can continue during communication failures or data integrity attacks, and whether those methods are documented, exercised, and auditable. This supports resilience planning and compliance evidence, including the referenced NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 SC-37 context.

Technical view

SOC, OT, and IR teams should validate that out-of-band communication procedures exist for the ATT&CK relationships this mitigation addresses: Denial/Loss of Control, Denial/Loss/Manipulation of View, Adversary-in-the-Middle, Alarm Suppression, blocked OT messages, and blocked communications over serial COM, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi. Because MITRE provides no detection text for this mitigation, validation should focus on whether teams can recognize degraded communications and switch to approved alternate coordination paths without relying on the affected channel.

Likely telemetry

OT communication health and availability indicators for command and reporting paths
HMI/SCADA or control-system connectivity alarms and loss-of-view/loss-of-control events
Alarm system status, including missing, delayed, or suppressed alarm conditions where monitored
Network or device evidence of blocked communications across relevant OT communication paths
Incident tickets, operator logs, shift logs, and exercise records showing when alternate communications were invoked

Detection direction

Do not treat this mitigation as a detection rule; MITRE does not provide official detection guidance for M0810.
Validate monitoring for symptoms that would trigger out-of-band procedures: blocked command messages, blocked reporting messages, communication failures, alarm disruption, and discrepancies between expected and reported process state.
Tune operational alerts to distinguish maintenance, planned outages, and transient communication failures from suspicious denial, manipulation, or blocking behaviors.
Confirm SOC and OT teams have escalation criteria for when the primary communications channel is considered unavailable or untrusted.

Mitigation priorities

Identify critical communications required for safe operation, operator oversight, engineering support, and incident response.
Define approved alternate communication methods for communication failures and data integrity attack scenarios.
Exercise the procedures against the related ICS impact scenarios, especially loss of control/view, denial of control/view, blocked messages, and alarm suppression.
Preserve evidence that procedures are maintained and tested for audit, resilience, and incident-readiness purposes.
Ensure alternate methods do not depend on the same failed or untrusted communication path wherever the local architecture allows.

Analyst notes and limits

M0810 is an ICS ATT&CK course-of-action object, not an adversary behavior. Its decision value comes from the breadth of mitigated ICS techniques: it supports continuity when operators may lose control, lose visibility, receive manipulated information, miss alarms, or have OT messages blocked. The ATT&CK object is mapped to NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 SC-37.

The supplied ATT&CK object does not specify platforms, tactics, or official detection guidance. Local OT architecture, process safety requirements, communication dependencies, and response procedures are required to determine whether the mitigation is adequate.

Official MITRE ATT&CK definition

Out-of-Band Communications Channel

Have alternative methods to support communication requirements during communication failures and data integrity attacks. [1] [2]

View the same entry on attack.mitre.org (MITRE-hosted reference; in-page links above use the Glexia ATT&CK library.)

Glexia analysis

How security teams should use this page

Treat this object as behavior context, not an attribution claim. Validate the related groups, software, data sources, and mitigations against official ATT&CK relationships and your own telemetry before making control-coverage decisions.

ATT&CK relationship table

Techniques used

This mirrors the MITRE pattern of making group, software, campaign, and technique relationships scannable. Relationship notes come from mirrored ATT&CK relationship text when available.

Filter related techniques 16 rows

Domain	ID	Name	Relationship / procedure
ICS	T1695.001	Serial COM Sub-technique	Ensure devices have an alternative method for communicating in the event that a valid COM port is unavailable.
ICS	T0815	Denial of View	Provide operators with redundant, out-of-band communication to support monitoring and control of the operational processes, especially when recovering from a network outage CitationNational Institute of Standards and Technology April 2013. Out-of-band communication should utilize diverse systems and technologies to minimize common failure modes and vulnerabilities within the communications infrastructure. For example, wireless networks (e.g., 3G, 4G) can be used to provide diverse and redundant delivery of data.
ICS	T0813	Denial of Control	Provide operators with redundant, out-of-band communication to support monitoring and control of the operational processes, especially when recovering from a network outage CitationNational Institute of Standards and Technology April 2013. Out-of-band communication should utilize diverse systems and technologies to minimize common failure modes and vulnerabilities within the communications infrastructure. For example, wireless networks (e.g., 3G, 4G) can be used to provide diverse and redundant delivery of data.
ICS	T1691.001	Command Message Sub-technique	Provide an alternative method for sending critical command messages to outstations, this could include using radio/cell communication to send messages to a field technician that physically performs the control function.
ICS	T1691.002	Reporting Message Sub-technique	Provide an alternative method for sending critical report messages to operators, this could include using radio/cell communication to obtain messages from field technicians that can locally obtain telemetry and status data.
ICS	T0831	Manipulation of Control	Utilize out-of-band communication to validate the integrity of data from the primary channel.
ICS	T0830	Adversary-in-the-Middle	Utilize out-of-band communication to validate the integrity of data from the primary channel.
ICS	T0826	Loss of Availability	Provide operators with redundant, out-of-band communication to support monitoring and control of the operational processes, especially when recovering from a network outage CitationNational Institute of Standards and Technology April 2013. Out-of-band communication should utilize diverse systems and technologies to minimize common failure modes and vulnerabilities within the communications infrastructure. For example, wireless networks (e.g., 3G, 4G) can be used to provide diverse and redundant delivery of data.
ICS	T0832	Manipulation of View	Utilize out-of-band communication to validate the integrity of data from the primary channel.
ICS	T1695.003	Wi-Fi Sub-technique	Ensure systems and devices have an alternative method for communicating in the event that Wi-Fi communication channels become unavailable.
ICS	T1691	Block Operational Technology Message	Provide an alternative method for sending critical commands message to outstations, this could include using radio/cell communication to send messages to a field technician that physically performs the control function.
ICS	T0827	Loss of Control	Provide operators with redundant, out-of-band communication to support monitoring and control of the operational processes, especially when recovering from a network outage CitationNational Institute of Standards and Technology April 2013. Out-of-band communication should utilize diverse systems and technologies to minimize common failure modes and vulnerabilities within the communications infrastructure. For example, wireless networks (e.g., 3G, 4G) can be used to provide diverse and redundant delivery of data.
ICS	T1695	Block Communications	Ensure systems and devices have an alternative method for communicating in the event that communication channels become unavailable.
ICS	T1695.002	Ethernet Sub-technique	Ensure systems and devices have an alternative method for communicating in the event that Ethernet communication channels become unavailable.
ICS	T0878	Alarm Suppression	Provide an alternative method for alarms to be reported in the event of a communication failure.
ICS	T0829	Loss of View	Provide operators with redundant, out-of-band communication to support monitoring and control of the operational processes, especially when recovering from a network outage CitationNational Institute of Standards and Technology April 2013. Out-of-band communication should utilize diverse systems and technologies to minimize common failure modes and vulnerabilities within the communications infrastructure. For example, wireless networks (e.g., 3G, 4G) can be used to provide diverse and redundant delivery of data.

Relationship explorer

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Change history

Object version and sync metadata

The fields below describe the current mirrored snapshot. When Glexia retains multiple ATT&CK source imports, you can open the table to compare the same object across releases (hashes and MITRE timestamps). For MITRE’s own release notes and roadmap, see ATT&CK resources — Updates .

ATT&CK release: 19.1
Object version: 1.1
Created: Jun 6, 2019, 21:16 UTC (UTC+00:00)
Modified: May 12, 2026, 15:12 UTC (UTC+00:00)
Raw hash: 423a9719af66197c...

Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases (1)

Release	Bundle imported	Object version	Modified	Status	Raw hash
19.1	May 18, 2026, 07:08 UTC (UTC+00:00)	1.1	May 12, 2026, 15:12 UTC (UTC+00:00)	Current bundle	`423a9719af66…`

Raw source

Mirrored ATT&CK source object

The raw object is retained through the mirrored ATT&CK source bundle and object hash. The raw endpoint returns the exact object from the mirrored bundle when available.

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Source references

External references and citations

MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.

[1]
National Institute of Standards and Technology April 2013

National Institute of Standards and Technology 2013, April Security and Privacy Controls for Federal Information Systems and Organizations Retrieved. 2020/09/17
Open source URL
[2]
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency National Institute of Standards and Technology 2013, April Security and Privacy Controls for Federal Information Systems and Organizations Retrieved. 2020/09/17 Rapid Attack Detection, Isolation and Characterization Systems (RADICS) Retrieved. 2020/09/17
Open source URL
[3]
mitre-attack M0810
Open source URL

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